I propose this: Give the raids back to the raiders

[Tomana]

WotLK is the expansion that stopped the sub growth. The sub numbers barely grew in WotLK and the numbers that it achieved were due to momentum from TBC. Since this always degenerates to arguing about sub numbers, here's a handy chart to see exactly how sub numbers behaved during different periods. As an interesting side note, EVE managed to continuously grow its player base all through WoW's existence (although their absolute numbers are much smaller since it's a niche MMO).

I suggest that you look at this graph then. If you actually look at it, you will see that the whole market was stagnating since 2009. Hence, WoW couldn't have gained millions of subs in LK or Cata, even with the most optimistic scenario because the total market was capped out.

But by all means, keep pushing your undefensible point, it's kinda fun.

[Akka]

The difference between the argument of "What do you care if others do things that you don't?" is that it used to be "can't" not "don't." People who now do LFR and Causally do Normals were the same people who never got to see most of the raiding content that the hardcore people did- Not because they didn't want too, but because they just couldn't progress to that point for whatever reason. The difference being that now, LFR is something that everyone can do, but you don't have to.

Three points that make me disagree :

1 - I don't see the problem if some people can't manage to win. The entire concept of "rewarding" comes from the fact that you achieve something in succeeding - if success is guaranteed or at least extremely probable, then the fun disappear.
I never saw Naxxramas at level 60. It frustrated me, but I had much more fun not being able to do Naxx but being able to meaningfully progress through MC, AQ, ZG and BWL, than I had to being auto-ported through everything without having to do anything in LK and Cata.

2 - The very existence of ultra-easy content drastically alters the rest of the game, regardless of if I use it or not.
Welfare gear means that previous content is irrelevant - alt just get teleported to the end, without progression.
Being able to see all the content in 30 mn remove one of the main motivation - HAVING to down the boss to progress further (again, "progression").
Gear, new instances and the like need to be tuned according to the overall balance of the game.
Saying "just don't do it if you don't like to" is just short-sighted at best, disingenuous at worst. LFR and such do alter the game in massive ways, regardless of if I play it or not.

Also, someone cutting up a post to respond to each point individually doesn't scream of nitpicking- If he ignored certain points and instead focused on a rather minute point instead of rubttling evidence and points given, it would be nit-picking. But rebuttling each point given individually is called being thorough. And what the heck is the "Globality"? Is the sum of the rebutted parts somehow greater and more indestructible than each of the points being rebutted too? That just doesn't make any sense, imo. The statement of a post is the some of its parts- If all the points to construe the message of the post can be countered, then the message of the post is countered when they are. And if you don't read a post that is thoroughly responding to each point, just because it's being thorough about its response, that sounds like laziness or denial on the part of the reader, not any fault of the poster.

Answering separate points in a separate manner is okay. Ignoring the global idea that the person describe by going for each line and trying a rebuttal is far different. Yes, the whole is bigger than the sum of the part (isn't there a saying about it, in fact ? ), and more importantly, if you take the time to answer to the global idea, it requires you to understand what the person want to say - while countering single sentences one after another does not.
And excessively slicing posts usually ends up in bickering over minutes points, leaving the meat of the discussion aside.

Actually, all those have a lot to do with those points. While that may not be the cause behind why you want the change, it is an effect that will occur if such a change happens. And all those are opinions about your own personal enjoyment of raiding, tbh.

But you say it yourself : that's not the cause, that's not WHY I (and I dare say : "we") want the change. That's precisely why the accusations are strawmen and dishonest.
And if you can see that such change would affect others, why didn't you also recognize that LFR does affect people who don't want to have anything to do with it too ? It's the same - with the difference that LFR effectively destroy most of the game for everyone, while having a more tiered game would still leave everyone with lots of content.

[Tziva]

It's not a rare situation, on the contrary.
Every character who hasn't started at the very beginning of the expansion has skipped all the tiers that weren't the last one. That includes all the new players (which are a minority for sure, but I don't think they count as "very rare"), but also most reroll (making this a rather common situation in fact).

I am not sure why we're counting rerolls, since by definition those players have done the content, just on another character.

And yeah, I'm going to maintain that new players joining the game at the last tier are very rare. If you think they're common, you'll have to provide some sort of evidence backing that assertion, otherwise I find no reason to believe it.

There is always only one tier. Regardless of the character you play, the guild you are in or anything. That's not "more content", that's far less.

You've lost me. You're going to have to clarify this statement.

I hold the total, entire opposed view. And I was in the situation where I didn't see all bosses. You basically state you don't like progression. I won't do like people who claim that they represent a majority (because they are simply full of shit, you can not know what the majority really think), but I can easily claim that MANY people prefer meaningful progression through the entire expansion over the game being reduced to 5 bosses.

I don't like progression because I want there to be content accessible to everyone? I'm sorry? I'm a raider. I like raiding. I have raided since classic WoW. I think the current system provides the content that I desire, without excluding people who raid at a casual pace. The best raiders in the world -- which I will fully admit I'm not -- have hard modes. And my casual friends for whom raiding was never accessible before? They still get stuff to do at end game, still get to see those bosses and participate actively in the WoW storyline. I am glad for them, perhaps especially so because I think raiding is one of the best parts of this game.

How many people raiding, in any expansion, in any style of game design, ever only saw just five bosses? If that was actually true and not a gross hyperbole , you might have a case for this position, but it's not. And if we're going to talk hypotheticals, it's far more likely to be the case in a scenario where there is no LFR and normal mode is much harder, because casuals will be unable to progress and may only see the very early expansion bosses and no more (and furthermore be stuck with those same few bosses for an unacceptable length of time), verses the current game design when even casual players can move through all the instances and tiers in their easy mode versions and see lots and lots of bosses.

Removing content does not provide more content, no matter how you slice it. Making less content that you spend more time in does not create more content. And certainly preventing less skilled raiders from have access to the largest portion of end game is not providing more content to them. The best of the best hardcore raiders come out even in your scenario, while everyone below that from the average raiders to the casuals is left with significantly less content. I don't care how you phrase it or what weird situational demographic you want to discuss, that's objectively less content.

I think we're just going to have to agree to disagree because it's pretty impossible to have a discussion with someone who is basing his argument off of bizarre circumstances (like the apparently great many players who join the game only in the final tier and somehow manage to jump right into the end game content without having geared up in lesser content) that don't actually match with the reality I'm familiar with.

[kilj]

I do miss the feeling in vanilla when actually having the best gear was because you put the effort to clear the content after weeks and weeks of wiping on one boss..... Now blizzard practically hands out the good gear, with all their buffs or debuffs to raids...

My thoughts

You can have your normal raids(casuals) Heroic Raids(Raiders)

But I think they need to get rid of the whole nerfing raids........ The whole 5-35% debuff to DS and 30% to ICC was utter BS, Blizz needs to cut it out, If people can't put in the time to kill the Heroic content to obtain the best gear then they shouldn't own it... end of story....

Soon they will start giving out free gladiator titles lol....

[Akka]

I suggest that you look at this graph then. If you actually look at it, you will see that the whole market was stagnating since 2009. Hence, WoW couldn't have gained millions of subs in LK or Cata, even with the most optimistic scenario because the total market was capped out.

WTF is that broken logic ?
The sum of all subscriptions prevents the subscriptions to grow ? Does that make any sense ?

Don't talk about "undefensible point" when you're using such completely idiotic reasoning, please...

[MoanaLisa]

But I think they need to get rid of the whole nerfing raids........ The whole 5-35% debuff to DS and 30% to ICC was utter BS, Blizz needs to cut it out, If people can't put in the time to kill the Heroic content to obtain the best gear then they shouldn't own it... end of story....

Soon they will start giving out free gladiator titles lol....

MoP brings with it achievements and Feats of Strength for those who beat raids without them being nerfed (as long as you beat them before the next tier is out).

Be proud of what you and your team accomplish. Worry less about the clothes that other people wear.

That said, perhaps Blizz should listen, call the bluff, stop nerfing heroics and let guilds die that can't get it together to finish those last one or two bosses.

[nekobaka]

Im sick and tired of people saying shit like casuals shouldnt raid this or should just stick to this etc.

Casuals have been raiding fine for years. Its not about being anti casual, its about being antisoloist and proteamwork oriented and leaving teamwork oriented content to those who like to work together as a team and not those who dont care to be there in the first place if it wasnt for the gear and not the content.

We ALL pay for the game to experience ALL the content however the hell we want to experience it.

Just because we all pay for the content doesnt mean we all want to experience it all or even have the time to do such and yet many of us are happy with the content we do see and dont need everything shoved in our faces and gutted in order to be happy.

[Tomana]

WTF is that broken logic ?
The sum of all subscriptions prevents the subscriptions to grow ? Does that make any sense ?

Of course that makes sense. It proves that the market is no longer growing despite new MMOs being created. In marketing terms, the MMORPG market is saturated. Consequently, you cannot gain millions of new customers out of thin air because pretty much all potential customers are already there. And unless there is a radical change, it is going to stay that way.

[Dch48]

Even to this date I have not seen any raiding content that was "faceroll" on the normal difficulty setting. Firelands was hard and so was Dragon Soul but it's strange that Firelands was actually harder. I don't have any problems with LFR at all but I will say this. If it is supposed to getting people ready for even the normal difficulty raid, then it should be a little harder. Not much, but a little. I also have no problems with progressive nerfs after the content has been conquered by the "elite" and others are experiencing roadblocks that may prevent their further progression before the content becomes irrelevant. I think it's the best and most fair system Blizzard has ever employed. It certainly keeps people plugging away who otherwise may have given up in frustration.

I would also say that the last 2 raids of Cata were pretty much at the perfect difficulty level except for Rag. He should have been toned down a little. I'm talking about normal mode since I never do the Heroic level.

The bottom line is this. Find and play with a group of people at your same skill level. Enjoy the content at your group's pace, be proud of your accomplishments, and don't concern yourself with what other groups either ahead or behind you may be doing. You'll enjoy the game a lot more that way.

[Leohkiin]

Three points that make me disagree :

1 - I don't see the problem if some people can't manage to win. The entire concept of "rewarding" comes from the fact that you achieve something in succeeding - if success is guaranteed or at least extremely probable, then the fun disappear.
I never saw Naxxramas at level 60. It frustrated me, but I had much more fun not being able to do Naxx but being able to meaningfully progress through MC, AQ, ZG and BWL, than I had to being auto-ported through everything without having to do anything in LK and Cata.

2 - The very existence of ultra-easy content drastically alters the rest of the game, regardless of if I use it or not.
Welfare gear means that previous content is irrelevant - alt just get teleported to the end, without progression.
Being able to see all the content in 30 mn remove one of the main motivation - HAVING to down the boss to progress further (again, "progression").
Gear, new instances and the like need to be tuned according to the overall balance of the game.
Saying "just don't do it if you don't like to" is just short-sighted at best, disingenuous at worst. LFR and such do alter the game in massive ways, regardless of if I play it or not.

I'm going to assume you meant two points, and that was a typo. And the concept of "some people can't manage to win" is fine and dandy when it you want people to have to achieve something to get a reward- But that's also why the rewards for LFR, Normals, and Heroics are tiered just like the difficulty is. LFR gear is a reward for doing something, with lower level gear for a lower amount of performance needed. Heroic gear is better than LFR gear because you have shown yourself to have earned a reward better than them.

And I fail to see how "alts" being transported to the end is unacceptable. So people trying to switch roles or bring up a new character to help the raid should have to spend months to catch up? Also, while the statement "Just don't do it if you don't like to" may seem short-sighted, it does get the point across. If you are constantly raiding and progressing through content as it is released, then it shouldn't matter to you whether everyone else is brought up to speed with you, unless you in fact give a crap about how everyone else being brought up to speed when a new tier releases. You are progressing through content, challenging yourself with your friends and guildmates to down every boss.

Answering separate points in a separate manner is okay. Ignoring the global idea that the person describe by going for each line and trying a rebuttal is far different. Yes, the whole is bigger than the sum of the part (isn't there a saying about it, in fact ? ), and more importantly, if you take the time to answer to the global idea, it requires you to understand what the person want to say - while countering single sentences one after another does not.
And excessively slicing posts usually ends up in bickering over minutes points, leaving the meat of the discussion aside.

Right. But each line was answered as a part of the global idea, not addressing them as individual arguments. Taking time to answer each point individually shows more understanding of the overall message, not less. The details are the key of any argument.

But you say it yourself : that's not the cause, that's not WHY I (and I dare say : "we") want the change. That's precisely why the accusations are strawmen and dishonest.
And if you can see that such change would affect others, why didn't you also recognize that LFR does affect people who don't want to have anything to do with it too ? It's the same - with the difference that LFR effectively destroy most of the game for everyone, while having a more tiered game would still leave everyone with lots of content.

Just because something happening isn't why you want something to happen, doesn't mean that it won't result in that. And I fail to see how LFR destroys the game for 'everyone' [I'd rather we didn't bring the universal "I" into this.] - It allows people access to the new content in a degraded form. Where as a tiered game would deprive a portion of the community of content that they would be unable to see in any form, so that the people who did manage to see it would enjoy it more for reasons I can't fathom, if not for the fact that they would simply be exclusively seeing content.

[Deleted]

I would also say that the last 2 raids of Cata were pretty much at the perfect difficulty level except for Rag. He should have been toned down a little. I'm talking about normal mode since I never do the Heroic level.

There was no combarison in firelands normal pre nerf difficulty to dragon soul normal pre nerf difficulty.
The first was much harder than the second.

That is why i am having trouble understanding what difficulty you consider perfect, because the one with the other had vast difference.
If you mean the 25% nerf firelands normal/unerfed dragon soul, then i disagree. It is way too easy.

If you mean original firelands then i must say it was a bit harsh for normal only raidig groups, there is a fine line somewhere in the middle. At least my opinion.

[vesseblah]

So you're saying that if I founded a progress guild at the start of T13 to progress in DS I wouldn't be able to skip T11 and T12?
Because that's wrong.

Every single player would have completed T12 already to have any chance to complete heroic DS even if the guild is new. Skill doesn't come out of nowhere, but from practice and experience. Sure you can pretend to be progress oriented guild with totally new players, but there isn't going to be any real progress made during first tier.

Since this always degenerates to arguing about sub numbers, here's a handy chart to see exactly how sub numbers behaved during different periods.

Too bad that handy chart is completely fictional, as there is no documented dip in the numbers in the middle of WLK. Don't believe all shit you can find from the internet.

That's about two to three lines of nothing but that. The "vocal minority" tidbit is also a nice touch. Not a strawman per se, but just as dishonest as the rest. Funny how "cold hard logic"-loving people ends up using biased and loaded terms. Guess logic alone can't do the job ?

I'm not being dishonest, I'm being brutally honest.

Do you even know what a strawman is ? Or do you use the word just because it sounds nice and look like a cool one to accuse people ?

Because I insult special snowflakes you say that I can't be objective in this matter is a classic strawman argument. Those two facts are actually completely unrelated even though you try to bunch 'em up. Return to this discussion when you understand what strawman argument actually means.

First, they are now faceroll material for anyone who has the barest grasp of the game.

Not everybody has the barest grasp of the game. Especially people who just picked it up. There are genuinely less skilled people playing WoW who need some content too.

The actual original goal when heroics were introduced was precisely to make them challenging for every people (they were even harder than the raids, in facts).

And yet another strawman argument, claiming that because heroics were harder than some raids in TBC, that was the intention all along.

All of those instances were severely nerfed during first two months making them much easier than any raids, and the loot Karazhan dropped was buffed by a tier. The five-mans were harder than Karazan because both of those were mistuned, not by design.

Third, a stepping stone is supposed to prepare you for what comes ahead, not to be facerollable.

With finite number of pre-set options there comes a point when difficulty level below is too easy and difficulty level above is too hard. There can't be infinite amount of gray shades.

And yes the content is skippable. "progression" means nothing if the content lower itself over time. If I do nothing and suddendly I'm farther into content, that's not "progression" and that's content that made itself obsolete and skippable.

It's not skippable because there simply isn't next step up if you raid every single tier from start to finish, so it's never going to be a problem for you. I can guarantee you that if you had asked the question "would you rather farm ToC for the next two months to gear up or buy these VP items to be able to join us in ICC" at the end of WLK from any hardcore raider who's rerolling or gearing an alt, you'd get get 100% "never again ToC" answers. Exactly same thing applies here. People will rather skip content they've already done to death if they can, and you're just making imaginary problem into real one in your head when you think that because you did every single instance, everybody else should do so too. It really is totally unrelated to your gameplay and should be treated as such.

Every patch the gear basically resets. This makes improving your gear not rewarding, because it's just like content, on "auto-improve" mode, you know everything will be increased at this level in barely a handful of weeks. Having a tag on it is just bragging right, it's not feeling like your character actually did something significant in the game world or progressed in a significant way.

Gear is always just means to an end, a tool which helps you kill the end boss. That's how it has been from MC all the way to DS. Every single time new tier comes out, you'll replace your gear with newer and better stuff. It really does not matter where and how the gear comes because it will come. Gear is always transitory in WoW, and if you try to imagine it's worth more or something permanent, you're doing it wrong.

[Fitzgerald77]

I keep seeing posts about less people doing raids, that that part is becoming smaller within wow, that we have 3 versions of raids for those who want to do it easy-mode, etc etc etc. Lots of opinions.


This is what I propose:

No more heroic raids, one raid fits all but keep a learning to raid for those that just want to experience and learn, they can decide if they want to get into the true spirit of raiding or not.

Give the raid back to the raiders. The others can have their 5 mans - quests - farming - pets - pvp and what not.

Give raids back to the raiders. Get rid of heroic raids. The model that worked best raid wise was Burning Crusade model. You had no gimmicky heroic versions, they just got progressively difficult. Not just the same boss again with a new ability added.

Give back raiding to the raiders, there is tons of other stuff for casuals and non-raiders to do. Raiding is a culture of its own, it is just about lost. I would like to see it saved.

Please read this with an open mind geared to discussion. It really is time raiding went back to those that love it and all the goals/difficulty that should be associated with it and all that it should entail.

======================

EDIT 1* I am adding this to bottom, my definition of raiding and what that should entail.

Raiding should be (and used to be this at its best):

1. BC Model

2. 3-4 raids...increased difficulty, need to finish one to be able to get to the next

3. No heroic version, nothing re-hashed, can't stress this enough

4. the further you go the harder it should get, (last raid in tier) You can't gdo the last half of a dungeon...too bad...others will...you get better or you do not see it.

5. I heard this a million times "I would love to raid but can't"..not our fault. Do not ruin the essence of it. if you can't do it..you'll live but please don't drag others down with you.

6. There are those wanting challenge, logical challenges, there is those wanting shit handed to them. Raiding should be about the work, strategy, time invested, working together for a common goal - comraderie and brotherhood. The further you want to go the more you need. If you can't do that, do not raid.

(one other thing..LFR is not raiding, it is not. Quit saying it is. It is a tool to see content easily and more to the point, get loot easily. It has none of the characteristics of the above. Give people gear straight up, the same as raiders if you want..just hand it out...don't care...but leave the raiding to actual raiders)

Edit 2 **

Well this thread exploded.

To add a few things to my original post. I realize people like LFR, as some do not have the time to raid hardcore. I think most half-assed serious guilds/raiders do 2-3 nights a week. Not that bad. Many are not hard-core but are 'raiders". 2-3 evenings a week is not much but that is probably the norm now-a-days. This is not a fact, just going on by what I myself see and have noticed.

A point I would like to be made clear regarding Looking for Raid. One, it is not actually raiding. Typically it's group that is formed into a cesspool, the cesspool then zergs a boss. There is no team work, people are usually ignorant to others , sometimes in the most vile ways. It is not about seeing 'content", people can't even say that any more with a straight look on their face. LFR is so players can get loot the fastest, easiest way possible and in turn, have fooled themselves into believing LFR is 'raiding". You will see the worst of people in LFR, you will never ever see the best out of people. LFR is the opposite of raiding. So to be blunt, if you do LFR and have been arguing in this thread about that being your 'raid"...stop it. It is not raiding. Let's stop calling it raiding. Think of a new name. Maybe "looking-to get-loot-easy-while-being-a-dick -to-others". Too long maybe.

Going back to my original post, I did say BC was the pinnacle of raiding, I still stand by that. It was great, I loved it, others loved it (even casuals). In today's market, there can be made room for casuals at the start. They then will learn if raiding is for them and continue on..or not. Either you want to raid for real or you want to pretend. If you want to raid and think LFR is raiding, you are only fooling yourself.

Again, raiding is:

A group of people getting together to do something bigger than usual, it feels epic and rewarding.

Comraderie / brotherhood

Logistics / planning

Time invested

Community

Competition, with others or versus your own team. Investment of time and energy for epic rewards.

major teamwork

relationships


That is raiding.

Along with this post and my original post, hopefully ive been clear. Some will not like this at all, maybe because it affects their loot. For those people, I can only repeat, maybe raiding wasn't for you and maybe you aren't good for the raiding community in the long run.

This is nothing to do with special snowflakes, elitism or anything in that vein. This is my opinion, I am not God, but ive paid my money a long time now and my opinion is as valid as any of yours.

Thanks

The game is no where near the same as it used to be in vanilla and BC. It will never go back to the way it was, just face it already.

These threads are so fucking pointless! If you are so depressed/mad at the state the game is in then do what I did and quit

[Akka]

I am not sure why we're counting rerolls, since by definition those players have done the content, just on another character.

Such view is weird for me.
If I'm playing an alt, it's to enjoy the game with a different char. So to "relive" the game, and to redo all the relevant the content. If my alt goes directly to the last tier, then it's rather an evidence that most of the content is skippable and irrelevant ?
Isn't it the point of an alt ? Being able to do the content with a different character ? Replaying the 5-men, replaying the entry raid and the like ? I loved to have lots of alt in Vanilla and TBC. I basically stopped leveling them in LK precisely because there was no point - they reached roughly the same point than my main nearly overnight, and all the content that was the point to play was just obsolete and irrelevant, cheating me of the fun to, well, PLAY IT.

And yeah, I'm going to maintain that new players joining the game at the last tier are very rare. If you think they're common, you'll have to provide some sort of evidence backing that assertion, otherwise I find no reason to believe it.

I find no reason to believe they are very rare either. I could ask you the same, prove it

You've lost me. You're going to have to clarify this statement.

Well... That's the whole point of the discussion, so I don't really see what's not clear...

Leveling has been dumbed down to the point you can just spam one button and tear through entire groups of mob. There is no gameplay value in it. You go so fast through the level that there is no involvement in it either. For the same reason, your gear barely last for a handful of hours at best, minutes at worst, so you don't feel anything rewarding from the gear either. Basically, the leveling, which was a BIG part of the game in Classic, has become a mindless chore to get rid off - by making it too fast and too easy, they made it a grind in the end, the very thing they claimed they were trying to "fix"...
So here you go, no meaningful leveling content.

High-level 5-men are more or less in the same shape : you faceroll them with one hand. The gear you'll obtain in it will be replaced in less than a day. No gameplay value, no involvement value, no rewarding feeling.
No meaningful 5-men content.

Raid content is obsolete save for the last tier. Nobody to run it, save maybe in rush mode for achievements. I doubt someone will claim it's rewarding and fun to do such a thing, save maybe once for the novelty.
No meaningful raid content save the last tier.

Here you go, the actual content of the game where you can actually PLAY is just the last tier. So, what, 5-10 bosses - and that answers one of your questions later, the game today is about 5-10 bosses and nearly nothing more.
And even on top of that, LFR already spoil the content, and you know that anyway, regardless of if you play of just twidle your thumbs, the content will dumb itself down to below your level (regardless of what your level is) in a rather short time. Even the only relevant content doesn't provide really any motivation to be excited about - bragging right about "I got it before the nerfs came" at best, and unlike the caricature used, I'm not particularly interested in bragging rights.

The actual design means there is pratically no meaningful content. The tiered progression with a much harder challenge level meant there was meaningful content EVERYWHERE. In Classics and early TBC, it was meaningful to level, it was meaningful to do 5-men, it was meaningful to do each single one of the raid tier.
Even someone who never went past MC already had much more content than someone who can clear DS today.

I don't like progression because I want there to be content accessible to everyone? I'm sorry?

No. What makes me tell you don't like progression is that :

I think it's more fun to see three tiers but spend a long time stuck in the last one before an expansion then spend a long time slowly moving through two tiers and never seeing the final boss at all.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but what you seem to clearly say here is that you prefer to be stuck in one single tier and see the last boss, than to progress through tiers but not be able to see the last boss. To me, it's a pretty clear-cut situation of someone who isn't very interested in progression itself. Seeing content without playing for it is just looking at a movie. If I'm in a game, I want to PLAY. If the game is about level and tiers, I want to PLAY THROUGH THEM. Making content irrelevant and skippable just so we can see "the last boss" is just something I can't wrap my head around - what's the point ? It's like going to see a movie and fast-forwaring to the end.

How many people raiding, in any expansion, in any style of game design, ever only saw just five bosses? If that was actually true and not a gross hyperbole , you might have a case for this position, but it's not. And if we're going to talk hypotheticals, it's far more likely to be the case in a scenario where there is no LFR and normal mode is much harder, because casuals will be unable to progress and may only see the very early expansion bosses and no more (and furthermore be stuck with those same few bosses for an unacceptable length of time), verses the current game design when even casual players can move through all the instances and tiers in their easy mode versions and see lots and lots of bosses.

I answered the point about "five bosses" earlier. Here I will just say : casual unable to progress, in Classics and TBC, still had leveling and 5-men. That's more content than Cata has, considering it made all 5-men and leveling effectively non-content.

Removing content does not provide more content, no matter how you slice it. Making less content that you spend more time in does not create more content. And certainly preventing less skilled raiders from have access to the largest portion of end game is not providing more content to them. The best of the best hardcore raiders come out even in your scenario, while everyone below that from the average raiders to the casuals is left with significantly less content. I don't care how you phrase it or what weird situational demographic you want to discuss, that's objectively less content.

No that's not. Meaningless content is not objectively more content. Meaningful content is. Having leveling, 5-men and one tier of raid is more actual content to play than having one single tier relevant and everything else obsolete or facerollable with one button.

[Cybran]

Yet there are more people clearing the content? How about you do maths?

The content gets dumber and dumber. There are so many crotches and nerfs that it's a joke only 600 000 people raid in guilds. Catering to the bad players is a huge mistake. Ghostcrawler can make 10000 more posts how "hard" Challenge modes are on twitter, but Challenge modes will never be as rewarding Raiding

[WaitingforMoP]

OR you could just do Heroic mode raids, or jump ship to SWTOR and do Nightmare Mode Raids and quit trying to ruin the actual majority of players fun

[Tomana]

The content gets dumber and dumber. There are so many crothes and nerfs that it's a joke only 600 000 people raid in guilds.

That's not the goddamn point. The initial poster was complaining that there were less raiders now than in BC. This is blatantly false. Anything else is a reply to something I never said.

Is it clear?

[Akka]

I'm not being dishonest, I'm being brutally honest.

So you use a long list of strawmen and claim "I'm brutally honest" ?
Wow...
I guess that sums up your good faith in this discussion, and show the pointlessness of trying to further it with you.

[Tziva]

No. What makes me tell you don't like progression is that :

I think it's more fun to see three tiers but spend a long time stuck in the last one before an expansion then spend a long time slowly moving through two tiers and never seeing the final boss at all.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but what you seem to clearly say here is that you prefer to be stuck in one single tier and see the last boss, than to progress through tiers but not be able to see the last boss. To me, it's a pretty clear-cut situation of someone who isn't very interested in progression itself. Seeing content without playing for it is just looking at a movie. If I'm in a game, I want to PLAY. If the game is about level and tiers, I want to PLAY THROUGH THEM. Making content irrelevant and skippable just so we can see "the last boss" is just something I can't wrap my head around - what's the point ? It's like going to see a movie and fast-forwaring to the end.

Okay, then I am correcting you as you are wrong. What I am saying is getting to see three tiers is more fun and more content then getting to see two tiers. That is what I am saying.

You're using some bizarre scenario where I am skipping right to the last boss and doing nothing before, which is not the case for the majority of players. Sure, if the choice is "kill the last boss" or "do two full tiers" then I would pick two full tiers. But that's not the choice that exists. The choice you're presenting is "be blocked from seeing the final tier if you're not one of the best players" verses the current "all tiers are accessible." Between those two scenarios, I'd argue that all tiers is preferable to a limited amount of tiers. If you want to imply those tiers aren't meaningful since they're not super hard then fine, I guess normal mode is not meaningful to you and you should stick to hard modes. If hardmodes aren't hard enough, then you're playing the wrong game.

I don't think wanting to see all the content is mutually exclusive with being progression oriented.

[notorious98]

I don't see what supposedly hidden perspective you have shown. You repeat what I said, just trying to tell "the game grew during LK" while the main point was that the growth was massively smaller than TBC, and most of it happened at release (so before people could see the faceroll design). What is your point ?

Obviously I need to break it down a little further for you.

-You said the only increase in Cata was after Blizz said content would be harder.
-WotLK increased it's subscriber base after TBC, maintained it throughout the expansion and actually INCREASED subscribers despite the content lull between the release of ICC and the release of Cata. This done DESPITE the fact that it was "easy".
-Subscriptions drop to rates that haven't been seen since BC during the content lull between DS and MoP release.

What you wanted us to think on is that WoW maintained 11-12 million subscribers throughout "Easy Mode" WotLK, gained some more subscribers because "Cata difficulty would be tougher", but then lost enough subscribers to obliterate the subscriber total that WotLK had because they nerfed content. So. If WotLK was easymode and was still able to maintain a higher subscriber base than TBC throughout the entire expansion's life, why is it even remotely logical to believe that the nerfing of content in Cata would kill subs to the level it's at now? Your post talked out of both sides of your mouth.

Second : oh yes these years did matter. They basically destroyed nearly all of the game, from progression to community.

Bro, the community sucked pretty bad in TBC. Wrath didn't do shit to help it, but it certainly did nothing to hurt it.

Blizzard shot itself in the foot, and replaced a large chunk of its playerbase from people who actually PLAY A GAME with people here simply to throw a tantrum if they can't have everything they want in 20 minutes.

You've obviously never been in a hardcore raiding guild where the raid leaders scream at their groups for making a mistake.

You realize that the "everyone in the last tier" design philosophy is the biggest content remover of the entire game ?
You would have more actual content if the last tier was inaccessible but all others were relevant, than with a design that make everything save the last raid obsolete...

This I agree with. But I don't play WoW, I play Rift, so I don't have to worry about any of that shit.

---------- Post added 2012-09-09 at 06:31 PM ----------

OR you could just do Heroic mode raids, or jump ship to SWTOR and do Nightmare Mode Raids and quit trying to ruin the actual majority of players fun

From what I've experienced of Nightmare Modes in TOR (which is all the Nightmare modes available), you may as well be running LFR.

---------- Post added 2012-09-09 at 06:33 PM ----------

The game is no where near the same as it used to be in vanilla and BC. It will never go back to the way it was, just face it already.

These threads are so fucking pointless! If you are so depressed/mad at the state the game is in then do what I did and quit

And play Rift. On second thought, I hope none of these whiners ever come to Rift. I prefer the enjoyable community I play with now. The other day, a level 50 cleared about 10 Planar Invasion guys for me so I could access the next set of quests. I COULD experience that in WoW, but it's far likelier that I wouldn't.